Starting April 21, Google began using mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor in searches. This change might have impacted your website’s placement in search results. You can check your web site at Mobile-Friendly Test

Ii's supposed to be simple: find the product for the good price on-line, check availability in the local store, place an order and you could make yourself happy as quick as you could get to the store, but...

The goal of the major algorithm updates of the past few years, which Google Google engineers named Penguin and Panda, respectively, is pretty specific:

To show high-quality, highly relevant search results to consumers. That means web pages that have original and valuable content show up higher in search engine results and consequently get more attention and clicks from consumers.

Web pages that the algorithm deems less valuable show up lower and get less attention and clicks.

It is about building great content, creating something that people want. That is the stuff search engines are looking for.

“To use social media effectively today takes strategists, writers, community managers, graphic designers, app developers, and customer service reps. It all costs money, even before you throw in funds for brand monitoring and analytics tools, publishing and promotions software, buzz-building prizes and giveaways—or for paid social media advertising.” (Advanced Social Media Marketing)

Email has become so routine that we often don’t think twice–or even look over the e-mail twice-before we hit the “send” key.

But if we aren’t careful about how we phrase the subject line, how our return address looks to the user, or even the way we address the recipient, we may be compromising our professionalism. And the e-mail may end up deleted or dumped — unread — into a spam folder.

Here are eight tips to creating emails that get opened and read:

Address recipients by their name. We’ve all gotten those anonymous e-mails with “Dear Sir/Madam” in the salutation. Looks suspicious? You bet. You can guess what happens to these messages. Use those personalization tools in your e-mail marketing program. A first name in the subject line or email itself often prevents an automatic delete reaction.

Don’t spam. Know the CAN-SPAM laws. http://www.ftc.gov/spam. Make sure that your list is opt-in, and recipients whitelist your server or e-mail address. Make sure there’s an easy “unsubscribe” link in each e-mail.

Don’t make your e-mail look like spam. Spam filters are tricky to get around — but there are certain practices that trigger them every time — such as excessive caps or punctuation. There are also spam-triggering words within the body of an e-mail that you should avoid, for example: Free, Increased Traffic, Order Now, even the word “Dear.” Learn more about spam triggers. http://www.mailchimp.com/blog/most-comm onspam-filter-triggers

Spell out your name, your company. Make sure your “from” line is transparent and doesn’t keep the recipient guessing. If you are the Acme Widget Company, Inc., spell this out rather than putting “AWCI” in the return address line. Recipients will often ditch an e-mail if they don’t recognize the company name.

Create suspicion-free subject lines. Again, keep things transparent rather than opting for the cutesy or obscure. The CAN-SPAM act, in fact, prohibits deceptive or misleading subject lines. There is certainly an art to making a subject line relevant, yet inviting to open. Study some of the e-mails that you open and evaluate why you opened them right away. These e-mails are good clues to what to put in your own subject lines for your business e-mails.

Keep it simple. Forget the jarring neon colors, dense copy and pointless images — it takes too long to download and some e-mail providers won’t allow them to show up. Stick to one or two fonts, one or two points in your content (and keep the language simple), and one or two graphics (your logo and maybe a picture of a product).

Write for a purpose. Don’t send an e-mail just to send one out. Make sure there is a specific reason for the email and a call to action. This can be more information, a free consultation, a free or paid e-book. The information you provide in your email or e-newsletter needs to be necessary and relevant to get loyal readers.

Bloggers often wonder what will be the best time to publish their content so as to yield the optimal results in terms of traffic and social shares. Social sharing widget Shareaholic studied these very metrics in reviewing its 2011 data and determined the top 100 days and times for sharing. As it turns out. Thursdays are by far the best day to post content that will be shared on social networks. especially between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. ET. and specifically at 9 a.m. Page views. however. are far better for content posted on Mondays. And even though traffic will naturally slow down exponentially after 9 a.m.. it always sees another spike around 9 p.m. ET.

The ability for business owners to allow customers instant access to online coupons and other marketing content through the use of scanning applications on their mobile devices.

What’s the value?

Whether the QR code is placed on a print advertisement, a physical product or distributed through various forms of digital media, the code ensures real-time access for mobile users to the marketing message of a business owner’s choice. These messages can include the notification of a time-sensitive offer, the announcement of a new Facebook contest or a YouTube video, an alert for a highly anticipated product just received or an update to a store’s revised holiday hours of operation.

One of the most important keys to success in QR code marketing is sending your customers to a mobile-friendly site through the link provided in the barcode. Knowing that users will be accessing the codes primarily through their smartphones and to a lesser degree through other mobile devices such as tablets, to link them to a standard website that challenges their mobile capabilities would be futile if not downright damaging to your business and brand.